EMG
 Consultation 

Address:
E . M. George,
EARALIL
40/6564 Market Road,
Convent Jn, Ernakulam,
Kochi 682 011
Kerala, India

New Product Development is a critical need in today's Market Driven Economy. The competitive edge in the market depends on bringing better products at lower price which would perform to give total satisfaction to the customer. This does involve quite a lot of work in the development of products be it one off or mass produced. It becomes essential to channel the best possible talents of the company in this direction. Many techniques have been developed over the years to be more and more effective with the available skills. The New Product Development Methodology (NPDM) is a combination of these tools in a context sensitive coherent team based approach.

Market Orientation
An efficient Customer Survey is envisaged as one of the best tools to grab the market needs. The product we put in the market must address the needs of customers in the market as perceived by them. This may not necessarily be known intutively by us. A critical assessment of our product in comparison with our competitors should also be aimed at.

Organisation and Environment
Product Development requires the expertise of all functions of the company. Therefore it becomes obvious that we have to have a cross-functional multi-disciplined team handling the whole job. At the same time can we afford to have such a team doing all the work? Is it justified? Can it even sustain the interest of all concerned all the time? A clear organisational structure balancing all these needs is to be provided.

Management of Technology
Engineering and Technology perhaps have the most profound influence in the development of an engineering product. Similarly for a software product it would be information technology and innovation. The NPDM is very sensitive to the context of the development; in all the major three phases - Concept Generation, Technology Demonstration and Commercial Launch.

Software for Engineering Design
While Test Marketing is the backbone of checking the effectiveness of Consumer Products, Alpha and Beta Tests are the mainstay of Engineering products. Tests are expensive. We can save many tests by a judicious use of engineering software. A powerful analysis of Mechanical and Hydrodynamic properties, Computer Modelling and such other aids can reduce the test requirement of engineering products drastically.

Production and Commercialisation
Having got a very good design of the product, the production and commercialisation processes can make or mar the bottom line. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a powerful tool among the variious tools in the basket of NPDM to address this area. there are a large number of examples of the effectiveness of QFD in Product Development.